Directed By Gore Verbinski

Starring – Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple

The Plot – A “Man From the Future” (Rockwell) arrives at a diner in Los Angeles where he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one-night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence

Rated R for pervasive language, violence, some grisly images and brief sexual content.

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE | Official Trailer | February 13 – Only in Theaters

POSITIVES

Verbinski’s first film in nine years feels like the natural progression from tech-driven science-fiction giants “The Terminator” and “The Matrix”, in that it conjures a very monotonously bleak and almost parodical world where humans have now completely turned themselves over to technology, and with a scathing social commentary that unabashedly gives audiences plenty of thematic substance to chew on, it feels like the most sociologically relevant film that the visionist director has conjured, surmising what is already the film to beat in a surprisingly stellar January movie season. While one could effortlessly read the synopsis and comprehend that Artificial Intelligence is the primary antagonist that stands opposite of this rag tag group of misfits who serve as the world’s last stand, the cunningly sharp and compelling screenplay from Matthew Robinson doesn’t lack depth with its expansive versatility, offering opportunistic instances to tackle sensitive subject like technological addiction, familial disconnect, and even school shootings in ways that not only attain factual accuracy for the ways they’re manifested exaggeratedly, but surprisingly hilarious in the ways Robinson outlines our ignorance of the glaring warning signs that could easily prevent such redundant tragedies, and while the script’s dominant tonal impulse caters itself to the kind of quick-wit humor that has made Rockwell a household name, it isn’t above some somberly stirring moments of dramatic intensity, courtesy of some intimately endearing vulnerability established to their respective arcs, allowing audiences a roller-coaster of emotions that never crumbles under the weight of its own creative and tonal elasticity. Speaking of the characters, the film is also quite ambitious in its runtime of 129 minutes, allowing the script’s overall structure to meaningfully indulge in the scattered time attained within an overwhelming majority of them, in similar methods that mirror last year’s “Weapons”, where the overarching narrative is established during the film’s opening minutes, before repeatedly transitioning to individualized sections containing the backstory of Rockwell’s soldiers. What’s refreshingly unique in this framing device is not only does the periodic delves offer a grander value and appreciation towards these characters, in ways that effortlessly allows us to invest in them and care about their well-beings in the foreground of the storytelling, but also conveys a deeper significance in magnitude of the established world-building that permeates creatively between them, featuring connective threads that simultaneously answers old questions materialized from previous chapters, while building new questions to have us curiously engaged to the next chapter, and considering this could easily go clunky in its determination to maintain the momentum of the engagement with frequent speed bumps, it’s a testament to Verbinski and Robinson fleshing out every intimate detail of conflict, leading to one major twist at the beginning of the third act that I honestly didn’t see coming, even as the evidential clues were before my very eyes the whole time. Aside from the substance of the screenplay, it’s also an engagement that left me enamored by the stylistic mastery that we’ve come to expect from one of the game’s biggest visionaries, supplanting stunning imagery and special effects work, primarily during the climax of the third act, that rendered an inescapable nightmare of nocturnal restlessness in a world where technology is on the brink of a complete takeover. What’s especially stunning in this aspect of my praises is that Verbinski and the production do it with a budget that doesn’t even clock in at ten million dollars, manifesting rampantly chaotic frenzy and science-fiction iconography with the kind of fantastical imagination that swims in the deepest and darkest waters of discomfort, embracing the underlining edginess that at times tempts this film to cross into horror territory without fully compromising the integrity of the aforementioned humor that it revels in so consistently effective. Part of the reason for that vibrancy of personality certainly belongs to the unapologetically caustic wit that Robinson continuously calls upon to bring out some much-appreciated depravity to the very complex and serious commentary, but just as much of the blame falls to such a charismatically charming and capable ensemble, who not only share an impeccable chemistry with one another, that was a complete delight to experience, but also impeccable comedic and dramatic timing that repeatedly met Robinson at eye level with regards to his intentions. In this aspect, it’s definitely Sam Rockwell’s showcase, with the Oscar winning actor breathing his usual sarcasm and cynicism to a role that is just as stoically physical in the ways he moves in and around the camera, but there’s equally as much scene-stealing tenderness from Haley Lu Richardson, who still feels like one of Hollywood’s best kept secrets, despite memorable turns in “The Edge of Seventeen” and “Columbus”. Richardson’s most meaningful work certainly stems within a third act that toes into sentimental territory with the material, affording her impulsive emotionality to hold the film’s interpretation in the palm of her hands, but even while acting opposite of Rockwell, she more than holds her own against one of comedy’s greatest heavyweights, supplanting a dry but impactful delivery to his madness in ways that serve as the eyes and ears of the audience, all the while maintaining the kind of initial tenderness that makes her character’s evolution all the more meaningful by film’s end.

NEGATIVES

On the side of inferiorities, there’s very little to complain about a film that is currently a major contender to my favorite film of 2026, however the one major problem that I had was with the delivery of its ending, which clunkily and convolutedly omitted some of the movie’s momentum in ways that finally felt the extent of its two hour mileage. That’s not to say that I didn’t understand what the movie was going for, or that it even fumbles the clarity and cohesiveness of its messaging, but rather that it packs so much into the final twenty minutes of the movie that it hurries some of the audience’s time to live in some of these major reveals, in turn unintentionally crafting an overstuffed impression to the film’s most defining moments that either leave the door open for futuristic franchise opportunities, or all together undercut the magnitude of what the journey and these characters accomplished, which I’m sure will send some audiences home underwhelmed for spending two hours to a resolution that isn’t completely resolved by traditional terms. Beyond this, my only other problem with the film came from the absence of longtime Verbinski composer, Hans Zimmer, being left off of the production, perhaps as a means of maintaining responsibility to the aforementioned minimized budget. Instead, the composer here is Geoff Zanelli, whose compositions and tones do appraise urgency and tension to so many high stakes sequences and set pieces, especially one such instance involving the group trapped on the roof of a house while a hoard of tech-indulging zombies climb to reach them, but I found so much of the Zanelli’s work during the down times of group interaction to ploy a bit obviously towards the emotionality required during these tension-breaking moments of the group’s first few moments, feeling a bit stale and even distracting in ways that occasionally took away my focus on these established dynamics. In another movie, I think Zanelli’s themes would work a lot better than a film that serves as a science fiction comedy, particularly one with not enough electronic impulses to his defining instrumentals, and while this ultimately won’t be a problem for everybody, I found it to underwhelm foundation building moments that served as the grabbing and gripping allure to the movie’s appeal, rendering blandness that I didn’t find at eye level with the stakes and circumstances of what this group is facing.

OVERALL
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a wildly funny and grimly disturbing cautionary projection of society’s dependency towards artificiality, and one that returns the campily quirky Gore Verbinski to the prime of his personality-heavy projects, alongside one of his most gifted ensembles to date. Though the film loses a little bit of steam in a convoluted ending that throws a lot at its audience in such a short time, it’s nevertheless a satirical stinger that wields honesty in the familiarity of our absurd actions and irresponsible priorities, surmising an ambitious time-traveling romper that earns every inch of its two hour runtime.

My Grade: 8.6 or A-